He leans toward the light.
Doesn't say much,
but he reaches.
Every morning,
he stretches toward me—
soft, slow, reverent—
like I'm the goddamn sun.
Not a roommate
with matching resentment hoodies.
He curls his tendrils
through the wisps of my hair
when I sit beside him,
as if to say:
“I see you. Stay.”
You, meanwhile,
pull away like I’m photosensitive.
Like affection might trigger
a rash of accountability.
But the ivy?
He thrives on what I give him.
Doesn’t flinch at my morning breath,
doesn’t pretend he’s too tired
to bask in me.
He doesn’t ghost me
from twelve inches away.
Doesn’t stare through me
like a window you forgot to close.
He just grows.
Soft and wild.
Like someone who knows
what it means
to want.
About the Creator
Ellie Hoovs
Breathing life into the lost and broken. Writes to mend what fire couldn't destroy. Poetry stitched from ashes, longing, and stubborn hope.
My Poetry Collection DEMORTALIZING is out now!!!: https://a.co/d/5fqwmEb
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Comments (2)
Well-wrought! I see an alternate view here as well, and please understand this is just me ruminating on my own experience as inspired by your wonderful piece: that the ivy can entwine itself to the point of suffocating what it loves where as the one who stands apart may give the other room to grow. Both things can and will be true, I surmise, depending on the nature of all involved.
Great